Mutterings of a Mad Woman

Yetch decided he wanted one of my little pumpkins from the batch I made for tomorrow's show. I left this little fella on his own while I packed up everyone else, and he just looked so forlorn (and a little desperate) by himself, perched so precariously. I quickly got him inside the curio cabinet with the other little pumpkins I've kept in the past.

I'm almost all packed up for tomorrow morning, which is good since all of Toronto is one big gridlock at the moment. Highway closures abound, and of course everywhere I need to be in the next 24 hours is on the other side of the city.

First stop is a late night showing of Fulci'sZombie (I won two tickets through Fangoria Magazine, which is pretty cool). But Yetch seems to finally be coming down with whatever virus has had me pinned to the mat all month, so I'm not sure if he's going to be up for it. It's one thing to get him into the car but another to ask him to travel to the other side of the city via transit and then walk a couple blocks when he's feeling poorly.

And tomorrow should be interesting since I have to drive across the city to get my wares to the Bazaar of the Bizarre and the highway I need to take will still be closed.

So by the end of tomorrow I'll either be happy from all the Halloween goodness I was able to attend, or ready to climb up on the edge with my sad little pumpkin.

SPEAKING of vintage Halloween pictures, I added a few from my childhood at the very bottom of the About page. Yes, that's me with the balloons in her hair. And the woman in the other picture with balloons on her head is my mother.

AND many of you have heard the story about me spray painting the tombstone on the wall for my Grade 4 Halloween party. Well now you can see a picture of that too (the link is in my bio on the About page).

Before I did my Rip Van Winkle routine and dropped into slumber for days as my body wrestled with a virus, I had time (and energy) to work on another piece from buycostumes.com. This time it was a radio.

I liked the old fashioned shape of it, and the idea that a skull presses out against the black screen of the speaker.

While not for me, some people might like the feature that when you turn it on, lights flash red and blue. The skull moves forward, pressing against the screen, and then there is a recording of a voice speaking spooky sayings.

For my display, I turned the radio off just when the skull was sticking out the furthest, freezing him in place.

The drawback to the radio is it comes in a light milk chocolate colour, almost like toffee (see images below).

The colour draws attention to the fact it's made of plastic, and since there is no contrasting colour on the main body of the piece, you can't see all the great grain detailing on the face of the radio.

The brass look of the buttons are fine, and the colour of the mesh at the top half of the radio is perfect.

I grabbed black, white and brown acrylics, and a can of black spray paint.

I think we should replace the spirits and traditional monsters who are referenced in scary stories with the change-of-season virus. It's much more terrifying.

On Sunday, I thought I was just about free of the festering fingertips of whatever cold had me in its grip.

But when I spent 19 hours on Tuesday unconscious, or wishing I was unconscious, I had my doubts regarding recovery.

I've tried to reason with the bug. I've weakly pointed toward unfinished projects, unmailed items, and important dates on the calendar, but it hasn't made much of a difference.

This morning I made noises like the Tasmanian Devil as my body tried to clear my lungs and air passage. Instead of being saddened by this new state of phlegminess, I was encouraged. If it's finally in my chest, it means my body might actually be purging it from the system instead of letting it hide behind my kidney or whatever spot it's been lurking the last few months (where you always feel like you're about to get sick, then don't).